A vehicle drive apparatus including an electric motor as a drive force source is well known, as in the case of a hybrid car and an electric automobile. For example, this corresponds to a vehicle drive apparatus of Patent Document 1.
The vehicle drive apparat us of Patent Document 1 includes an engine and a front-wheel electric motor driving front wheels, and a rear-wheel electric motor driving rear wheels. A control device of the vehicle drive apparatus basically uses only the front-wheel electric motor and the rear-wheel electric motor (simply referred to as “electric motors” if not distinguished) to drive the wheels without operating the engine at vehicle start-up.